There’s growing competition in the luxury SUV market with established players like the Range Rover, the BMW X5 and Audi Q7 being joined by the latest Volvo XC90 and the Jaguar F-Pace. To meet this challenge, Lexus has given its Lexus RX a makeover.

On the hill roads above Loch Lomond, I settled back into the comfortable seats of the McLaren 570S. I admit that the first few miles had been slightly more frenetic as I got used to the car while threading my way through the heavy afternoon traffic west of Glasgow.

Jaguar has unveiled its I-Pace electric concept car and there is a little bit more interest in this concept, because Jaguar have confirmed that the I-Pace will go into production. The production version of the I-Pace will be revealed next year and will go on sale in 2018.

I’ve tested the Toyota Prius a few times in the past. The Prius was the first modern-day hybrid launched almost 20 years ago, going on sale in 1997 in Japan. This time I am driving the fourth generation model built on a completely new platform.

When news first filtered out that Jaguar was seriously looking at building an SUV, there were raised eyebrows in some quarters. Why Jaguar would want to produce an SUV when their sister company, Land Rover produced nothing but SUVs?

When the first news of the Range Rover Evoque Convertible broke I remember my reaction. It could probably be summed up in four words: “That’s just wrong”. But, why is it wrong? Probably just because no other mainstream manufacturer has ever offered a stylish compact convertible SUV like it, so we don’t have a preconceived idea of why it might be good and who would want to buy one.

The new Alfa Romeo Giulietta has been around since the Geneva Show in 2010 and came second in the European Car of the Year Awards the following year. Now there is a new model – the Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1.4 Sprint MultiAir. Based on the existing 1.4-litre unit, the Sprint power unit is tuned and re-mapped to produce 150 bhp.

First impressions count and, when I first saw the new Mazda 3 at the celebrity race for the Australian Grand Prix a couple of years ago. it struck me as one of the most cohesive family car designs currently on offer from any Japanese manufacturer.

I was feeling confident that we had followed the instructions of our sat-nav, but we ended up travelling 16 kilometres up the A15 to Parma. To add insult to injury, we then had to pay the toll, before turning round and heading back, again paying for the privilege!

Suzuki now has two superminis to offer buyers, but they see them appealing to subtly different markets. The Swift is seen as their supermini with a bit more of a sporty image. The new Baleno, produced in India, will be aimed at buyers whose main motoring priority is practicality.

It is some time since I have driven a Toyota Auris, so my first reaction on seeing this road test Auris was to check the details. I still tend to think of a Toyota Auris as being a compact family hatchback and sitting there in front of me was seemed quite a sizeable family estate car.

In my student days, one of my classmates turned up one day in an elderly Fiat 500. I became the unofficial mechanic and, on one occasion I was trying to fettle the car, I asked the proud owner why she had bought the 500. “It looked like it needed a mummy,” she replied.

It was inevitable that comparisons would be made with the resurrected Mini brand, when Fiat produced their new Fiat 500 in 2007. Like the Mini and Volkswagen Beetle before it, the new Fiat 500 echoed the cheeky looks of the original. In Fiat’s case this was the tiny rear-engined Fiat 500 produced from 1957 to 1975.

Mitsubishi has confirmed that it has discovered that fuel consumption testing data submitted to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in Japan has been improperly presented in order to improve fuel consumption rates. The testing method was also different from that required by Japanese law. Read More...

It’s that time when many of us will be planning to escape the chill of spring and head to warmer, sunnier climes for a well-deserved break. A road trip in the USA is one of my favourite holiday pursuits, so if you are heading Stateside for the first time, here are some tips for drivers.

If you have been to see the Bond film Spectre, you may believe that you have seen the new Aston Martin already. But, the reality is that the Aston Martin DB10 in the film was not the real successor to the long-lived DB9. That successor has just been launched at the Geneva Motor Show and it is the DB11.

At the end of last year we focussed on the return of a style icon from the late 1980s and 90s – the Suzuki Vitara. Now, just three months later, we have in our hands the keys for the new Suzuki Vitara S.